Homesick (Lesbian)

CHAPTER 17: The Wedding Part 1

On Thursday, everyone packed their bags. On Friday, two days before the wedding, we drove to the venue where we'd spend the weekend. Connor and Sheila were getting married in a resort only two hours away by car. It was a nice lodge that they found online and fell in love with immediately. It had plenty of pools, a golf course,  a tennis court, a beautiful artificial lagoon, and a gigantic bungalow that would be decorated to celebrate the wedding on Saturday afternoon.

To be honest, I felt a little jealous. Riley and I didn't get to do this when we got married. We just went to a notary and signed papers. It was not what I wanted but it was what we could do at the time. We always talked about having an honest to goodness wedding, but life kept getting in the way. We never found the time, and those plans just faded away little by little.

But I was happy for Sheila and Connor. Especially because up until three years ago, I didn't believe Connor would ever be the kind to get married. It's not like he's a playboy, it's quite the opposite. Connor never showed a lot of interest in being in a couple. He had dated three women in his teenage years and all of those relationships weren't exactly great, so I guess he lost hope. He focused on other things. Mostly getting his life back on track. But then, years and years later, this nice, shy girl, with a passionate love for books and a fresh out of college degree on Library Science, came into our store after reading about a job opening online.

Honestly, she was overqualified for the job, but it was her first real job after all and she needed the experience. But Sheila never left. She became close with Riley and I and started dating Connor and before we knew it, she was part of the family. Something that mean a lot to all of us since Sheila didn't really have a good relationship with hers. For what I understand, only her mother and younger sister came to the wedding.

Connor and Sheila rode on a limousine all the way to the Long Gate Resort. Scott rode with Mike, Louise, and their daughter Emily. Because I had the MDX, which is a very spacious car, I was supposed to ride with my mom, Richard, and Sheila's family. At that moment, only her sister had RSVPed, but the mom showed up last minute, so it felt uncomfortable for all of us to be in the truck. Instead, Sheila's family travelled with the Brenans so that both family's could get to know each other better... and Riley travelled with us.

It didn't make sense to me. I thought Riley was the one driving, but she came to my car's window to tell us that Sheila's mom had just showed up, and that she'd be the one travelling with us. She said she wasn't driving because her arm had been 'giving her problems'. My first instinct was to ask 'Have you been taking your meds? Doing your exercises? Have you been sleeping well?' But no. It was not my problem anymore.

The Brenans left and as if to annoy me, my mother told Riley she could ride shotgun with me, since she'd feel more comfortable on the back with Richard. Riley looked at me asking for my permission to get on the copilot seat. What else could I do?

"Yeah, sure," I said.

She smiled, picked up her duffle bag from the floor and threw it in the back. While I was driving, my mother and Richard kept talking amongst themselves about how beautiful the landscapes were around this parts, especially in the middle of fall. 

I caught a brief glance of Riley who just looked out the window. She had her airpods on and was probably just listening to music while staring at the scenery, which was, in all honestly, breathtaking. The trees to both sides of the car, the leaves turning red and falling off, getting ready for winter. I kept my eyes on the rode for another ten minutes, when I turned to see Riley again, she pulled her phone out, probably to change the song, and I had a clear look at her hands and noticed something I hadn't even thought about before.

She still wore her wedding band.

You wanna know something funny? They're not even gold. Our wedding bands are silver. They were the first two rings we could find for our rushed up wedding. We always said we'd change them. Get some white gold, or red gold ones or something like that. But we also never did that. There were so many things that we should've done and never did.